Trog

No doubt about it - Trog is a bad, bad film. yet, I think it is better than most give it credit for and wholly entertaining for its camp. The story is inane: some troglodyte had been frozen in nearby caves somewhere in England for centuries, found by exploring men, kills the exploring men, and then is taken alive to go to the Brockton Scientific Research Center run by a high-coiffed Joan Crawdford. Crawford plays the scientist out to get a name for herself, her institute, and for added measure, science itself. But she is not the cold, dispassionate stereotype of a scientist. No, here she plays ball outside with what she affectionately calls Trog. She plays games with him. Gives him toys. Beams when he learns a new trick and mothers him in general. The trog, while in no way could I argue it was good make-up - what little there really is - is better than it could be. And at the very least, the trog costume/make-up is able to convey feeling and emotion to some degree. The rest of the story is preposterous as some local decides to let trog out - for reasons I never fully found convincing - so trog could go out and do his obligatory rampage through a small English village. Don't look for much in this movie. Freddie Francis, the old Hammer stalwart himself, directed this muddle and it is sub-par for a man with his talent that directed The Creeping Flesh and so many other great horror films of the 70s. From a directorial perspective, Trog is a major disappointment. But, if it is high camp you want and entertaining camp - I was never bored - then Trog might just be to your taste. What can be all bad about seeing a sixty-plus Joan Crawford don neon lab coats, throw rubber fish and lizards into a cage, throw a ball to a man in a troglodyte costume,or tote a hypo gun acting with all the seriousness of a Robert Stack. Those scenes were well-worth the pain one might incur during the "talky" scenes so many seem to have mentioned. I found the film to be surprisingly short at 93 minutes. The last two "major" films Crawford made were for legendary B producer Herman Cohen - Berserk! and Trog. Yes, they were dramatic departures for a legend such as Crawford, but they were acting jobs that still were mainstream cinema to some extent. And I am sure no one - including Crawford most of all, would have thought these two films would be her last(least if you will). Michael Gough is also in the picture in what I can only term as a completely throw-away role meant to make a plot that shouldn't move - move.

The good: There is precious little but the ultra professionalism of Joan Crawford even in dreck like this is impressive indeed. She was aware what she was involved in and while many actors would have just phoned in a blank wall of a performance Miss Crawford would never allow herself to lower her standards to that level. At least by providing her own wardrobe, a budget necessity, she at least guaranteed that although matronly she was at least stylishly dressed amongst the mess that was surrounding her. A pity that this was her cinematic swan song after such a fabled career. She was offered a few more parts, albeit supporting roles in both Airport '75 and Airport '77 which are hardly masterpieces but at least more distinguished than this, but had lost her confidence and totally withdrawn from public view.

Beside Joan keeping a stiff upper lip while encircled by junk there are some pretty views of an English village and the surrounding countryside and some very buff actors in the first sequence who strip down to their undies and take a dip to go exploring a cave. Those are the sum total of worthwhile elements in this clunker.

The bad:everything else in this terrible movie. Only for completist fans of Joan or extremely bad movies.

I thought this was going to be one of those " So bad that it`s good " type movies , an optimism that was built on the DOCTOR WHO standard of cave sets ( To be honest the cave sets from DOCTOR WHO are far better ) not to mention Trog`s make up or his method of killing people by throwing paper maiche boulders at them . Unfortunately much of TROG descends into a morality play with a political subtext :ie Trog is an allegorical criminal with Doctor Brockton being the voice of progressive compassion while Sam Murdock is the reactionary flog them and hang them type . This might actually be coincidence because the last third of the film goes against the logic of being a morality play , mind you there`s little logic to the script in the first place , for example why would jazz make Trog angry and classical music soothe the angry beast ? I`d have thought he`d be unable to notice differing musical styles . How would surgery be able to make him speak ? Language volcalbury and communication isn`t only down to vocal ability , oh and there`s no way Trog would have been able to recognise dinosaurs as they would have died out millions of years before he existed.

TROG is a very patchy Brit B movie . It is enjoyable in places ( For all the wrong reasons ) but you have to sit through a lot of talky scenes for them to arrive

and then shoot me with it...this is an absolute howler!! See Joan face down the troglodyte with her "hypo-gun"!!! See Joan's wardrobe of pink, white and tan lab coats!! See Joan bully the troglodyte into submission!......The sad end to a glorious career for sure,but let there be no doubt, it's still the one and only Joan.....kicking troglodyte ass no less. Heck, if I had a murderous troglodyte on the loose, I'd call Joan.............Crawford is quite game with her role as the scientist(?) and maintains a straight face throughout....no matter if she is tossing rubber lizards to the troglodyte or crawling around in the dark calling out to the TROG! This is a gloriously bad movie. MOMMIE DEAREST was no crueler than this.

People sure do make a big deal out of Joan Crawford being drunk, especially in dreck like this. I guess it would be surprising to learn that she was completely smashed during the filming of "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane," but let's forget that. It was a decent movie. My point here is that most of these reviews slam the star for being tipsy. If you were making "Trog" you'd want to be as incoherent as possible! Second, Joan doesn't mangle her lines. They come out oddly, but they aren't mangled. It wasn't like Joan Crawford to mess up, at least not in public. The main problem with the lines is their utter idiocy.

My first big problem with the movie wasn't the horrible sets. It wasn't even Trog, who couldn't even get makeup from the waist down. Brockton Research Centre is run by Dr. Brockton, who just happens to be Joan Crawford. Here's my big problem. Of all the actresses (drunken or not) in all the world, why in the heck would someone pick Joan Crawford to play an anthropologist? Does she even know what one is? Hearing her discuss Neanderthals makes me shudder. I don't know anything about Neanderthals, and I don't think Joan can teach me a darn thing about them either. "Conceivably, Trog was frozen solid" etc. etc. etc. What?!? I simply cannot believe Joan would waste her breath talking about cavemen. It's wrong. Even more incredible, she has earned a research center with her name all over it! What did she do to get that? Paint the sign herself? I'm slamming Joan myself now, but still. This is weird casting.

As for the acting in the movie (this is a movie, not a film), Joan did better than the movie deserved. That was something she had a gift for. Giving more than she got. She didn't get anything with this one, but she still gave it her all. That causes people to snicker and laugh, saying "Joan must be stupid to think this movie merits all this." No, the movie doesn't, but Joan's mind needed the knowledge that she always did (and looked her best). We may laugh when she gets overly attached to what looks like a wrestler being attacked by a monkey, but we should give her some credit for trying. That's why I think that one moment at the end of the film is quite good. She refuses a newsman's microphone, and you can almost forget how awful this movie is when you see the weariness on her face.